📜 Rules

 

📅 Dates

HackUSF will take place from Saturday, March 28 to Sunday, March 29.

  • Hacking begins: Saturday, March 28 at 11:30 AM

  • Hacking ends: Sunday, March 29 at 11:30 AM

 

All project development must occur within this time period.

 

 

👥 Eligibility

HackUSF is open to all students from any university interested in building and learning.

Participants must:

  • Be 18 years or older

  • Work in teams of up to 4 members

  • Follow the MLH Code of Conduct

Participants may form teams before or during the event.

 

 

🛠️ Project and Submission Requirements

Projects must:

  • Be created during the hackathon

  • Include meaningful development completed at the event

  • Be submitted on Devpost before the submission deadline

Submissions must include:

  • A project description

  • A demo video

  • A public GitHub repository

  • All team members listed on Devpost

Code or project changes may not be made after hacking ends.

 

 

 

🏆 Prizes

HackUSF features both General Prize Tracks and Sponsor Prize Tracks.

  • All teams are automatically considered for General Prize categories.

  • Teams must opt in to be considered for Sponsor challenges during Devpost submission.

Prize details can be found in the Challenges & Prizes section of this guide.

 

 

⚖️ Judging Criteria and Winner Selection

Projects will be evaluated by judges based on the following criteria:

  • Originality/Innovation - Hackathons are all about innovation. Be risky, explore new tools, and build something novel!

  • Expertise - We don’t want projects to be entirely ‘vibe-coded’ where the hackers don’t actually understand what they’ve built. Instead, we want to assess the depth of expertise and technical understanding they have regarding their work.

  • Functionality - We’re looking for a solid, well-executed MVP that’s stable and reliable. While teams should be able to explain their project’s logic at a high level, the focus here is strictly on the quality of the build and making sure the features are as functional and bug-free as possible.

  • Design - Not to be confused with just how your app looks, also focus on the user experience when creating your app!

  • Technical Learning - This is for teams that explored new technologies and learned new things, rather than already building on something similar they may have done in the past. We want hackers to learn new things to be able to build on their skills.

Judging will take place during the Judging Expo on Sunday.

Teams will present their projects in expo-style judging sessions, where judges rotate between tables to evaluate projects.

Winners will be announced during the Closing Ceremony.